


The Lightning Tree

by Seramimi



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Feels, Hopeful Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, Nightmares, One Shot, Pining, Trauma, edelgard is sad, help this is my first ao3 submission and i don't know what tags are, is this crimson flower? azure moon? both??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21858082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seramimi/pseuds/Seramimi
Summary: On the eve of the Millennium Festival, Edelgard returns to Garreg Mach, with only her nightmares and prayers for company.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	The Lightning Tree

In the darkness, the nightmares came. Spindly fingers of lightning lit the small bedroom where Edelgard twitched and dragged her pillow over her face, covering her ears but unable to silence the screams carved into her memories. Voices, moans, sobs: the reedy breathing of her brother as he slowly starved to death, his mind lucid and but his body hopelessly paralyzed; the whimper of her fever-mad youngest sister burbling through her blood-filled mouth, her throat cut to silence her ceaseless crying. Ten voices, ten names, sobbing, wailing, pleading — then extinguishing, one by one, until the empty room held only the echo of her solitary, desperate screams: "Father! Father, save me! Father, don't leave me down here!"

Edelgard pulled the fabric of her makeshift blanket closer, and curled it around her body tightly. The nightmares had been her only consistent companion through most of her life, though that had changed one day at Garreg Mach, five years ago. She could still smell the dust on the air, taste the blood on her lips, hear the scream cut short and see the hand reaching for hers as the chapel collapsed around them. The memory was burned as a white-hot afterimage on the insides of her eyelids and as a scar through her heart. She had spent three nights and three days without food or rest, searching for her by the light of the full moon and noontime sun. Eventually, though, her body failed her, and with her hands bloody and legs trembling she collapsed in the ruined chapel. That night, in her feverish delirium, and for each one thereafter, there were no more nightmares.

~ * ~

In her mind’s eye, in that same chapel, Byleth came before her. Her bare body was unbroken and radiant, illuminated by a sunbeam as she stood with her hands spread towards her. Her smile was gentle, and her face shone golden as summer wheat. Edelgard felt the draw of her deep inside her chest, like the sun turning the faces of flowers. Edelgard’s hands, numb from days in the freezing rain, came alive as they touched Byleth’s fingertips. A spark skipped the gap between them, stretching into an electric streak that crackled like fire under her skin.

"Oh El," Byleth murmured. Like thunder after the flash, her voice crackled like breaking, burning glass. In it, she heard the dozen voices of all her previous nightmares forged into a single, accusatory tongue. Her eyes were sharp, hard slivers that cut like knives into the black pit of guilt festering deep in her belly. "El, my heart. How could you have done such an awful thing?" She stepped closer. A single slender finger caressed her high cheeks, and dragged down the line of her jaw and pressed to her mouth. Byleth’s touch was soft as a whisper, tender as their first kiss. In the other hand, the Sword of the Creator cracked like breaking bone and coiled, snakelike, against the dark stone floor.

Edelgard pressed her lips together, a hairs breadth from Byleth’s fingertip. Her dry throat clicked as she tried to speak. "I'm sorry," she croaked. "I am so, so sorry, my teacher.”

The hand gripped in her hair and twisted Edelgard to her knees. Pain lanced through her scalp, and as the spectre of Byleth pressed her face up against hers, Edelgard felt as if she were falling down a deep well. Her heart hammered in her chest, like a butterfly beating its wings against the cage of her ribs. "You promised me, El. You promised you’d stay by my side. You promised you’d keep me safe. Just like you promised to save Fódlan - remember that? I _trusted_ you.” The ashen demon’s smile turned brittle. Her breath smelled like old blood. “And now I’m dead, and the world is burning.”

Edelgard’s voice died on her lips. The sword snapped together in a single, serpentine motion. As Byleth looked down at her, Edelgard watched her face become a hard mask of contempt, white snow splashed with crimson. The tip of the blade pressed into the hollow of her throat, lifting her gaze upwards, and the Flame Emperor's sunken eyes locked down upon hers. Her body arched desperately, hungry for the kiss of that steely penance against her flesh. "I was the light who pulled you from the darkness, El,” she murmured.

“And now what a monstrous shadow you cast.”

Her voiceless throat screamed a prayer to her uncaring goddess, and only the lightning answered.

~ * ~

Edelgard slammed into the floor and scrambled to her feet. A second bolt seared her vision, filling her sight with the pale afterimages of tangled sheets around her legs and the silvery outline of the room she had stolen into at Garreg Mach. Sweat soaked her face, neck and hair, and her clothes stuck damply to her heaving chest. The taste of iron was a sharp tang on her tongue. A quick inspection revealed that she had bitten through her lower lip, probably during her tumble from the bed. She hesitated for a long minute, eyes closed and ears listening intently, but it appeared that the thunder had masked her ungraceful fall.

Satisfied that she was as of yet undetected, Edelgard stumbled to her feet, found the desk and pulled the window shutters open before sticking her face out into the night air. At this time of year, the breeze had always been sweet with apple blossoms and clover, though the years of war had burned those orchards and left only the acrid scent of ash and cinder. Nevertheless, the coolness of the storm-laden wind was soothing, and she stared upwards towards the clouded sky and tried to forget the figments of her cruel imagination. It had been so much easier, five years ago. Her touch had been a whisper on the hollow of her wrist, her fingertips cooling the burn of old scars in her skin. Her lips had been a promise pressed to the curve of her jaw and neck, her breath curled hot against her ear, quieting the riotous screams. Her body had been a commandment, an invitation, bare against—

Edelgard closed her eyes and breathed deep, waiting until the sweat cooled on her skin and the chill began to seep into the room. When the pounding in her ears and neck calmed, and she withdrew back into the bedroom.

“Foolish of me to doze off like that,” she muttered to herself, though she knew in her heart that this entire excursion had been foolish, if not sheer idiocy. Hubert had chided her often for indulging in childish fantasies: to doze an afternoon away in the sunshine watching the sky, to eat nothing but cake and sweets for an entire day, or to believe that her long dead teacher would rise from the dead to keep a promise she had made five years prior. Yet, despite his admonishments, Edelgard had carefully snuck her way through Kingdom territory to the damaged monastery, and taken refuge in Byleth’s own room.

A part of her had hoped she might find Byleth there, as she had so often done during their school days: perhaps reading at her desk, or curling catlike in her sheets, or sitting at the edge of her bed, holding a candle and looking at her with expectant, knowing eyes. Edelgard had found none of these things, of course, but she had still taken the time make a slow inspection of the room, her hands caressing every detail as if feeling for the lingering touch of her teacher. She stroked the wood of the fishing rod in the corner of the room, bowed with overuse, and remembered summer days at the water’s edge with her and Flayn. She turned the pages of an old hymn book, with Dorothea’s handwriting in the margins, and found clumsy portraits of a woman with silver-white hair and lilac eyes hidden in the back pages. She opened the doors of the wardrobe, and met with a sight that that brought tears springing to her eyes.

It was Byleth’s cape, draped in cobwebs. Gently, she took it down, brushed the silvery threads away from the fabric, and pressed it to her chest, breathing in the dusty but achingly familiar scent. It held the memory of that night they spent atop the Goddess Tower, when Byleth had wrapped it around her shoulders to keep the chill at bay while they listened to the dance concluding below. It reminded her of nights in the library with a long since cold cup of tea, where she would occasionally awake in the dead hours of the night to find herself bundled in this selfsame cloak. It warmed her with the memory of a gentle smile and a heart that would hold all that she laid bare. And so, encircled by the protective embrace of her teacher’s dress and with the sound of gentle rain in her ears, Edelgard had soon dozed off to sleep.

That had been hours ago now. Her body still thrummed with nervous energy, and with nothing else to do but wait and barely enough light to see by, Edelgard took a seat at the desk. She found a small nub of charcoal and a corner of folded parchment in a pouch pocket, and began to draw. For half an hour, she traced the contours of Byleth’s slight jaw and modest cheeks and etched in the details of her nose and turned the page to shade her features, until the steel cord vibrating like a harp string in her chest began to slow, harmonizing with the low note of thunder rumbling outside. Drawing her had always come easy, even if Edelgard’s talent could never hold a candle against the real thing.

But yet… Edelgard paused. At least, it always had been. But now something seemed off, and she couldn't quite place her finger on what. She flipped the page and held it to the window, hoping the change in perspective would help, but couldn't identify it. Her frown deepened. Were her eyes rounder than this? Was her face not quite so narrow? Edelgard tried to focus on her memory of Byleth, but it was fuzzy in her mind’s eye. Were her cheeks really that pronounced? She had drawn her hair down to her chin, but had it been longer? The harder she tried to focus on her recollection, the more difficult it became. Her hair, more seafoam or teal or turquoise? Her skin, more eggshell or cream? Edelgard bowed her head, screwed her eyes shut. One hand crushed the piece of charcoal she held into a loose powder that dribbled onto the page, unheeded. Had she truly forgotten her face? She knew the name, knew what she felt, but...

Lightning snarled across the sky, and the thunder brought with it the crack of splintering wood. The light revealed the shapes within her page: sunken, accusatory eyes with a wicked, cruel twist to the lips. A figure with jaws clenched and neck taut with muscles like corded rope. A face of white porcelain, splashed with blood.

The light flickered, and the image faded. Edelgard’s face remained grim. The cloak lay rumpled on the floor.

~ * ~

In the morning, the nightmares ended. Edelgard pushed the door open wide, revealing a cloudless dawn above a courtyard glistening with fresh rain. Years ago, on this day, she had made a promise to return and see her beloved again. She breathed deeply, smelling ozone and ash mixed with faraway apple blossom and clover. Years ago, in this place, she had lost her guiding light, buried under a hail of stones. She tilted her face proudly towards the sky, hearing bells ringing a welcome to the new day.

In one hand, she gripped Byleth’s cloak and swept it over her own back, and felt a new light ignite inside her.

“I am here, my teacher,” she said. Her voice rang with thunder.

**Author's Note:**

> My submission for the @YuriRenaissance zine - huge thank yous to Fleur and the rest of the organizers for doing such an amazing job! Check them out for more than a hundred pages of sweet sweet girl love, including a beautiful cover illustration for this fic by @tuberpaste (will update when it's posted). You can find me and additional shitposts + ficlets + smutty drabbles on twitter @emprisa! Please reach out! I'd love to meet you ;_;


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